The goal of Groove Bias was to create a set of deeply sampled acoustic drum kits inspired by classic 50s, 60s and 70s records and the timeless breakbeats we all know and love. For decades, these sounds have been imitated and sampled over and over, but many producers have preferred to try and capture old kits with pristine, modern recording methods. Not so with this library. Impact Soundworks' motto was "the more tubes, the better," and armed themselves to the teeth with beat-up mics, analog gear, vintage drums and tape machines.

The library contains nearly 4,000 samples (4 gigabytes) across three custom drum kits and a set of percussion. The audio content includes five snares, four kicks, nine toms, three hats (closed, loose, open, pedal), two rides, two crashes, two splashes, two rims, handclaps, tambourine, shaker, agogo, bongos, woodblocks, cowbell and triangle. Unlike the various enormous drum libraries out there, Groove Bias simplifies mixing, combining mics into single patches (though you often have access to separate overhead/room mixing, for example, to control natural reverb).

Despite the lo-fidelity recording method and old-school gear used, all the audio for this project was dumped and edited from Pro Tools at 24-bit, 96 kHz. The samples (WAV format) are a mix of mono and stereo, where appropriate. Every single patch has a minimum of five round robins and five velocities, all the way up to sixteen velocities and ten round robins for some patches, such as some of the snares.

All formats of the library are basically divided into two primary patch types: component patches, which contain single parts of each kit, such as a single snare, and full kit patches, which contain an entire drumkit. The component patches allow the user to create a custom kit easily and swap parts in and out to their taste, while the full kit/multi patches provide a ready-mixed, quick start option.

Priced at $99 (multi-format) / $89 (NN-XT), Groove Bias is available now as a direct download via the Impact Soundworks website.